EWW GROSS! I jest. But lately, I think that’s what people are doing. Spreading their oral herpes liberally via makeup at the store. This has to stop people.

This week has been riddled with bringing things home from the store only to find that they have been…. dun dun dun…… USED!!!

People! What is wrong with you? Don’t you know that you don’t use the lipsticks on the shelf if they aren’t testers? I don’t want your Abreva medicine on MY lipstick tube.

Case 1- Went to Walgreens because I found on Pinterest a gal that posts low end brands identical to high end brands. Being the makeup whore that I am, I wanted to check out a few. So I’m perusing the shelves of Cover Girl, Revlon and L’Oreal. Not that I would call this stuff ‘low end’ any more. They’re charging $10 for a lipstick now! Geeze, I remember when I bought a Clinique lipstick for $10.

Well, I just went through looking for the colors on my list, dropped them in my basket and checked out.

I get in my car, like any junkie does, and begin to open up my purchase to check out the loot. Apparently, I didn’t have much to check out, first tube I open, I notice the seal has been broken. Dammit. Total brain fart maneuver for me not to have checked this in the store first. I proceed with caution. I know the herpes isn’t going to jump from the tube to my lips, but I’ve now begun conducting my own CSI investigation. Gloves on, black light out…. I notice…. the surface of the lipstick has been touched by human flesh. Double dammit.

Moving on to the next tube. Yep, same thing there.

Three items that I bought were contaminated. I went inside to check the shelf and the remaining products were also tampered with. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?? I pointed out to the Walgreens lady and she said that she’s tired of telling people to stop using the stuff because they get mad at her. Sounds like a fun job. Working at Walgreens AND getting stink eye looks from people tampering with merchandise.

Whatever happened to, ‘you mess it you buy it’? Although, I have knocked over 3 bottles of olive oil in the middle of Cost Plus World Market, and the mess that ensued was disastrous. How I’m even allowed in those stores at all is amazing. I was relieved they didn’t hold me to the rule, “you break it, you buy it” during that incident.

Back to my infected product rant- later in the week, Emma and I are at Sephora killing time before we head in to a movie. I see two women over at the mirror with a Givenchy mascara tester, yes tester, thank goodness. BUT… and I mean a big BUT, they were putting it on directly from the TUBE using the WAND that comes with it. Anyone knows you use those little mini wands they have at the end caps and you only dip ONCE. No DOUBLE DIPPING. Now that tester has their conjunctivitis all over it.

I used to work at Clinique with Nordstrom. If you are at all familiar with Nordstrom’s liberal return policies, they take back ANYTHING. Well, they did in the 90s anyway. So people would return make up all the time. No biggy. That’s cool. And you can use it and decide you don’t like it and still return it. My favorite though were the customers that would nicely hand me the package, receipt, everything. Then I would ask if there something wrong with it. You know, to utilize my skillful customer service skillz, because I was supposed to try and sell them something else. Hey, I worked on commission.

So they would say, no thanks, and then they would explain rather sheepishly, “I only used the lipstick once.” or “I only used the eye pencil once.”

And I would politely carry on with my uber friendly customer service. But in my head, the dialogue goes like this, “Oh, you only used it once? Well then I will put that in the USED ONLY ONCE DRAWER. We have a special discount for once used products. Like a roulette wheel of sorts. Great bargains!”

But I didn’t. I just smiled. I don’t care if you’ve used it ONCE or 43 times, that shit is going back to the manufacturer. Should I wipe it off and sell it to the next poor sod? No.

So that brings me to the Walgreens lipsticks. When I saw them in my car that they had been used, I totally thought of some nice lady, “I only used it once.” And then I pictured a puss-filled broken sore on her upper lip, and that’s why I returned them.

Lesson 1- Don’t use products on the shelves that are packaged specifically for tampering. If it’s sealed, don’t unseal it dammit!

Lesson 2- When using a tester, use the little doohickeys they provide and don’t double dip.

Lesson 3- I will never use a mascara at Sephora again.

Please don’t use makeup at the store if you have one of these.

Disclaimer- Do not google images of herpes or conjunctivitis. It will ruin you. There are some things that can’t be unseen.

I also do not believe that every single person who has used a tester at Sephora is contaminated or infected. This is just merely exaggeration for the sake of the blog people.